by Z. Rider
“It probably runs back toward the changing rooms or the admitting area and skirts along behind them. Your way—who knows. Your call.”
The secretive whispering in the walls comes from my direction, like a message buried in static.
Behind us somewhere, a thump echoes. A long scraping sound comes after it, moving toward us.
My upper lip is damp with sweat.
The whispering tickles my ear. I scrub it with the heel of my hand.
Thump
Tugging A.J.’s shirt, I whisper, “This way,” and slip into the corridor in my direction. I’m not big on heading back the other way; it just seems like it’ll take longer to get out of here that way.
Sssssscrape
The new hallway is narrower. We have to go single file. I’m out front again. So not where I want to be. A few feet down, I’m already second-guessing my choice. The whispering static’s distracting. If it gets louder, it’ll be harder to hear things coming, like that thump and scrape.
Or something worse might come after us, fast and nearly silent.
Another shriek vibrates the walls under my fingertips.
A heavy thud rattles the ceiling.
I put my hands flat on the walls.
Thump from behind us again, and I wouldn’t want to be in the back of our little convoy either. I speed up. The static is all around me now. I can almost hear the message in it. My ears reach for it.
A howl barrels at us from behind, like a train, the sound so loud it pushes my back. My breath rushes from my lungs. My feet move faster. There’s confusion in my head, the whispers. I don’t want to be alone—I reach back, feeling for A.J.
My shoulder bumps a wall in the darkness.
There’s a thud. The wall shakes.
My fingers find empty air.
“A.J.?”
Thump
A sick chill curls in my guts. “A.J., don’t fuck with me.” The whispers fly around my head. I can’t do this shit alone. My fingers grasp along the wall. I can’t do this shit alone. I find a crease in the wall—the edge of the doorframe. Palm after palm, I make my way across the face of the door.
Sssssscrape. Coming closer.
My sweaty palm slips over the knob. The fucking thing doesn’t budge. My throat constricts. I force a quiet, “A.J.,” out.
Thump
I hit the door with the heel of my hand, and the bang is dull, like the hallway’s sucking up the sound.
Sssssscrape
“A.J., don’t fucking do this to me. This isn’t fucking funny.” Sweat sticks to my forehead. The roof of my mouth is dry as a coffin lid. My ragged breaths rasp in my ears, harsh as the whispers.
I slam the door again. “A.J!”
Thump
4
Hey
The hand over A.J.’s mouth clamps down so hard it pinches his lips against his teeth. A meaty arm squeezes the breath from his chest. His slippered feet kick air. The guy who has him must be six and a half feet tall and wide as a truck.
Someone shoves the door closed. A faint light comes on. The walls and floors of the small room press in. Bottles and jars crowd a shelf bolted to the wall. A metal counter runs along underneath. A.J.’s knee knocks into it before whoever has him turns him so he doesn’t upset the bottle and syringe sitting on it.
Thumps come at the door—Nate.
He yells against the big hand and sounds like a tomcat muffled under a pillow. Thick fingers clamp his nostrils shut, cutting off even that noise. His chest gutters, trying to get air—or get rid of air. Anything. He kicks harder, panicking so hard he can’t hear if Nate’s still hitting the door.
“Now, now”—a murmur near his ear, not from the guy who has him. This other one has a loose hold on A.J.’s wrist, keeping it out of the way while he tilts his head closer to say, “No touching or Latka will break your neck.”
Latka jerks A.J.’s face to the side with his thick hand, like This is how I’m going to snap it.
A.J.’s temples pound. His heart is a fist beating his ribs. What Latka could do to him drives an icy spike through his middle. He closes his fingers over Latka’s hand. What he wouldn’t give for a big gasp of air right now. His lungs are like lead balloons.
“He’ll be okay,” the murmurer says.
Latka’s thumb and finger open slowly.
A.J. hauls air through his nostrils.
A tink of metal comes from behind. The rustle of packaging. A.J. squirms, pressing his head back. He tries to get more air in against the constriction of the arm clamped across his chest.
Smooth, warm fingers nudge the sleeve of his shirt up.
Something cold swabs his skin.
Fear fuzzes his head. He squeezes his eyes shut, draws another deep breath through his nose.
Fingers touch his arm.
His neck tenses. His breath comes in little gasps. He lets go of Latka’s hand to try to cover his arm, where the cool spot almost itches.
“Latka.”
Latka’s thumb leans against A.J.’s nose. A.J. grabs Latka’s fingers. He’s afraid of what the other guy’s going to do, but he’s more afraid of having his air cut off again.
At the sharp pinch in his arm, he bucks. A thin, cold sting hits his muscle. His fingers claw at Latka’s.
The needle withdraws.
His head is going light. His heels patter the big man behind him.
This isn’t fucking right.
They can’t just stick you with God knows fucking what.
The guy who injected him unlatches a door, not the one they’d snatched him through. Latka swings him around. A.J. doesn’t see what’s through the door—he’s crying out against the hand gag, struggling.
His knees hit the floor. A cacophony assaults him. At his back, a lock clanks into place. With his palms on cold metal, he looks up, breathing quick gasps. The ceiling lights star and halo at their edges. His heart races to a hundred and fifty, two hundred beats a minute. Chain link fence rattles against posts. Filthy fingers reach through its holes. Patients in dirty pajamas press their faces against the chain, moaning, yelling, trying to get at him.
One clutches the links with grime-smeared fingers, puts his mouth against the metal, and spits. A hot wad of phlegm lands under A.J.’s face. The guy smiles, toothless. His chin shines with saliva.
A.J. claps a hand to the wall and hauls himself up, his knees shaky, his head heavy. He leans there a second, eyes squeezed shut.
What’d they stick me with?
He closes his hand over his upper arm, where the needle went in.
Someone in the cage—a woman, he thinks—grunts excitedly, like a chimpanzee egging on a fight. He pushes off the wall.
The fence runs the length of the corridor, creating a four-foot-deep cage on one side. A.J.’s at least on the outside.
A screech drives into his eardrums like nails.
His heart’s going to explode. His pulse races as he clutches his arm.
The caged patients shout. His heart goes thudthudthud.
He staggers forward, head spinning, tongue thick in his mouth. He’s thinking how he needs to be at the airport in the morning, how he’s supposed to set down in Afghanistan in two days, unless whatever they just did to him fucks him up so bad he can’t get on that flight.
Jesus, explain that to his CO.
A woman with a scooped-out hole where her right eye should be waggles her tongue. A grinning man shoves his soft and drooping dick through the links, jiggling his hips to make it dance. Shrieks and grunts bounce off the hard walls. A.J. shakes his head hard, trying to get things back in order up there.
He lurches in the direction of a swinging door. Clamminess washes over him. He grips his arm harder.
The fuck did they put in me?
He hates this fucking funhouse.
They can’t just stick you with who the fuck knows what.
It has to be saline.
So why is my heart fucking rushing?
What if I’m allergic to sa
line?
Don’t be a fucking idiot.
He stumbles to a knee. He needs to collect himself, get himself back up.
A wad of pale green snot hits the floor in front of him.
He pushes back to his feet.
The needle was just to freak him out, that’s all.
It’s working.
He shoulders through the door finally, and as it closes, it takes the sharpest edges of the cacophony with it.
He’s sticky with sweat, but he takes a deep breath—able to, finally.
He’s in an alcove about the size of his bedroom.
A patting sound like fat, slow raindrops comes from a gurney in the shadows.
Jaundiced lights tucked under cabinets are the only illumination. Doorless hallways lead off on two sides. He wipes his brow with the side of his elbow, still clutching that arm.
They’ve thrown him off completely—snatching him, drugging him, dumping him out the other side. He needs to figure out how to get back to Nate.
He peers into the hallway at his right. It’s a short, dim corridor with a bend in it.
Another pat comes from the gurney. A.J.’s grip tightens as he drags his attention over. It’s a body strapped under a blanket, just a head exposed. The head lifts, neck straining, then drops again—pat.
Beyond the gurney is a counter, and at the end of the counter is tucked a doorway he didn’t see on his first glance around the room.
Pat.
He sidesteps farther into the alcove, wanting a look down the other hallway, careful not to get too close to the thing on the gurney. It might just look strapped down.
The hallway’s pitch-black.
On the gurney, glassy eyes stare toward the ceiling, thick lines of bloodshot crossing jaundiced whites. The neck muscles tighten, the head lifts. The eyelids slip down, like a baby doll in reverse.
Pat as it drops back to the mattress. The eyes pop open, staring at nothing.
The blanket, shifted a little off the patient’s shoulder, exposes a dark twist of flesh where an arm should be.
A.J. grips his own tighter, fingertips tingling under his nails.
The eyes whip open again. Lips jerk back, revealing teeth locked with steel wires. Neck muscles tighten, raising the head.
A.J.’s heart goes too fast. He swallows another flood of saliva, swipes his brow with the side of his arm.
Yellow ooze gleams between the haphazard stitches at the body’s shoulder.
He needs to fucking find Nate.
Psst.
He jerks around, searching the dimness for the noise.
A girl with mousy hair peeks over the far end of the counter, her eyes as round as Little Orphan Annie’s but dark. She’s eleven, maybe—twelve tops. As she puts a small finger to her lips, her eyes shift toward the door he just came through, then dart back to him. There’s a little tilt of her head before she slips through the door behind her.
The head goes pat. The man on the gurney grunts.
A.J. turns his eyes toward it. It turns its eyes toward him.
His cheeks prickle with unease.
A movement at the edge of his vision makes him look back toward the counter—and the girl’s there, her eyebrows raised: Are you coming?
The thing on the gurney struggles weakly against the straps holding it down, trying to lift its torso with no arms to push the straps away.
When A.J. drags his eyes from it one more time, it moans through its locked teeth.
The girl ducks back through the doorway, bare feet padding on the floor. He takes off after her, catching sight of her flowered nightgown flagging behind her before she disappears into the next room.
He follows. It’s a big closet. The girl crouches at a wall, working a ventilation grate free.
The man on the gurney begs through his locked-shut teeth for the same thing the jawless woman had written on her wall: Help me.
Where would I even start, buddy?
The hallway with the cages, the room he’d been snatched into, the closet he was in now—how did it jibe with where he and Nate had been? Which way should he go?
The grate gives way with a rusty creak. The girl’s arms tremble under the weight of it. He steps up to help lean it beside the hole she’s uncovered.
The hole spills cool air over his toes.
The girl’s eyes flash, and she pulls herself inside, one knee then the other. The nightgown puddles between her ankles, the soles of her feet dusty.
He crouches. The duct is big enough, but the light from the closet only shines so far in.
At the edge of the light’s reach, the girl looks back. She beckons with a small hand.
He looks over his shoulder.
The pleading from the other room has turned nasty: Help me, you fucking asshole, you fucking piece of shit. Or at least that’s the gist of it, from what he can tell.
When he looks back in the hole, the girl beckons again, her mouth pinching with impatience.
He crawls in.
His shoulders bump the ceiling. His body blocks most of the light.
The girl’s a pale shadow crawling down a throat of darkness. Her nightshirt whispers over the metal.
He wonders how far the ductwork goes.
The little girl’s knees bump quickly, making the duct vibrate against his palms.
He’s six feet in, about to follow her around a turn in the duct, when gears rumble behind him. The floor shakes under his knees. The sound makes him think of a dog kennel.
He tries to see over his shoulder, but the ceiling’s too low. He drops his head, looking between his legs.
Metal bars block the way he came in.
Part of the show.
But brittle unease crawls through him.
The girl’s turned herself around and come back, her face pale around dark eyes.
“You have to go through,” she whispers, so soft it’s hardly a breath. She puts a finger to her lips again before turning and crawling around the corner.
Forward it is. He takes a deep breath and starts moving. Seams in the ductwork dig into his knees. The back of his head brushes the ceiling. To get through the bend she went around, he has to turn half onto his side, pushing on the walls, dragging his hip over metal. He rights himself in darkness, straining to make out her shape up ahead.
His ears twitch at the soft swish of her nightdress.
He presses forward, warmish air skating through his hair from somewhere.
When he swallows, the sound feels trapped in his head.
A dull thud comes through the walls.
His knees take longer strides than hers, but she moves more quickly. His joints are frustrated, aching to sit up, straighten, stretch.
A tighter turn slows him down. The walls push against him. His gasps bounce off metal as he worms and wriggles through.
The girl waits for him, breathing softly. He thinks he sees the quick shine of her eyes before she turns her head, but in the darkness it could have been anything.
A shriek shakes the walls. Screams follow—a man’s, desperate, going on and on. Pushing him forward. It’s not Nate. It doesn’t sound like Nate, at least—too deep, too strange.
A thin light ghosts through up ahead. The girl passes into then out of it on her hands and knees.
Somewhere overhead, feet pound the floor.
He crosses through the light, looking down an offshoot to his right, expecting to see a grate—another way out maybe, and maybe he’d take it—but there’s just a shielded bulb in the middle of nothing.
Just endless fucking ductwork.
He hopes Nate’s having a better time.
He has a hard time imagining Nate in the funhouse alone. It’s not something he’d do, given a choice—his speed is more a late night in a basement with Dominion cards and too much Mountain Dew. A.J.’d given up soft drinks in boot camp. He’s kind of proud of sticking to that.
He should have ignored the girl, he realizes. Should have gone down that first hallway he’d loo
ked down instead. This isn’t getting him any fucking closer to Nate; it’s just getting him more lost.
On the other hand, maybe the ducts will take him to the exit, where his clothes and wallet will be waiting. It’d be a lame way through the place, but he’s irritated and prickly. He just wants out.
It’s an extension of how he’s been feeling these last few days. It’s that whole feeling condensed and cubed and wrapped in dull silver paper, like a piece of bullion. Everything’s shit. He just wants to be away from here already.
He doesn’t like how he feels around Nate or, more accurately, how Nate feels around him. It’s none of Nate’s fucking business what he and Delia do, or don’t do—but the way he’s acting…
He makes A.J. feel like snot dangling on the front of someone’s shirt.
Nate’s going to have to get over it. People fuck. It happens.
The tour in Afghanistan is good—it’ll give the little booger time to get over himself.
After his toes are out of the halo of light, the ducts rumble again. Bars clang down behind him. It doesn’t bother him much—you have to go through, right? He pushes forward, eyes on the pale shape in the darkness ahead.
Metal shudders against his shoulders.
A grating drops down so close to his face it skates a breeze over his nose.
“Hey.”
He grasps a bar.
“Hey,” he calls to the little girl, his voice echoing and muffled all at once.
The girl keeps crawling.
His heart, which hadn’t settled back to normal after the shot in his arm, ramps back up—too fast, too unnatural. He grips the front of his shirt. His breaths come short. He pushes against the grate. Tries to pull it upward. Tries to get leverage one way or another as his stupid Insylum pajamas slip against the metal floor.
“Hey—I’m stuck here! You’ve gotta get me out!”
The trail of the girl’s nightgown disappears around a turn.
“Shit.”
He tries turning to check the gate behind him, but the space is too tight. He backs against it, pushing with his rear end.
He flattens his palms against the front bars to push against those.
Sweat trickles along his temple. He grits his teeth and clutches the bars, shaking them. A droplet falls from his eyebrow.
